Weeknote 21
Running a race, reflecting on a project gone wrong, what is mapping
How do you start your holiday? Well for me this year it's running in the Lakes. I'm writing this sat in my van in Coniston on Friday evening. Tomorrow I'll be running the Lakeland (50), which is probably the biggest ultra race in the UK in terms of numbers I think. Or maybe the spine is? Anyway it's big.
The 100 just went off to a big crowd, ACDC blaring, lots of kids cheering. It was fun. I generally don't do big races (or any races as at all). I prefer the small ones, where you get a cup of tea and cake if you're lucky. The last big one I did was the UTMB, which is massive taking over Chamonix for a week or so. That was fun, but intense.
Anyway, for some reason I saw the ballot for the Lakeland and thought why not. And so tomorrow will be 50 miles in the lakes. Lovely. Typically I've been feeling good about my running recently, so typically I've rolled my ankle and given myself a bit of sprained ankle. Ah well. It'll be a nice day out. I'll let you know how it goes.
Edit - so it's the day after. As expected my bum ankle threw a spanner in the works, making the uphills (one of my strengths) really hurty (yes that's a word). I managed to push through for the first half but found it tough after that. Had to grind it home to the finish. Anyway, it was a fun event, very 'community' focused with lots of interesting checkpoints (including a simply delicious cheese toastie at one - you know how much I like a toastie). Still, probably too big for me, probably just go back to exploring mountains and ridges in my own time. Obligatory photos below
Some photos of the event. Mainly of lakes and green fells. One of my stupid faces. One of me at the finish line
What I did
It's the first week of school holidays so it's been a bit of a juggle, but still got some stuff done.
Kicked off the new Organisational Resilience work with LBF this week. It's building on work I did in 2020/21. The first part is all about design and resources and planning. Delivery will be later this year or early next to allow for a real relational approach in the two places. This is important, and the time to do that often isn't available.
Did more work on The List. Built out the weekly snapshot, added some new data fields (used Charity Classifications by David Kane and Chris Damm for some of this https://charityclassification.org.uk/ ). Feels like it's almost ready for testing.
Had a chat about a project that went wrong. I'd like to think I'm pretty reasonably not shit at what I do, and so this doesn't often happen. But on this particular project I never felt I had a handle on what to do, how to do things. Stuff kept changing, and it just never got anywhere. There were red flags from the start, I thought I could overcome them. I couldn't. Ah well, all learning.
Got turned down for a proposal to do some mapping. It's tough out there.
Speaking of mapping. I did a linkedin poll which asked the question "When people say they want to 'map' something what do they mean?"
This was part sarcasm, part very serious. I see mapping mentioned A LOT in tenders and briefs. Most of the time the mapping is a list. It's ok to say a list.
Tom Watson
Interesting thing - a bit light this week
Sorenson Impact Foundation 2025 Grant Program - Advancing Ownership & Empowering Responsible AI: Catalyzing Innovation for Inclusive Economic Growth
We need a European Sovereign Tech Fund - uh huh - hard agree
Subliminal Learning: Language Models Transmit Behavioral Traits via Hidden Signals in Data
Five Critical Mindsets for Nonprofit Systems Thinkers
Proton launches privacy first AI
how-can-we-regenerate-rural-neighbourhoods-and-should-we-consider-revisiting-total-place